Rural Truckers Are Paying Too Much and Urban Car Owners Too Little

A fundamental question lawmakers should
ask about programs is who pays — and who benefits.

Last week, the Oregon Senate Finance and
Revenue Committee got the answer about who’s footing the bill for a public
service that tops lawmakers’ to-do list this session: Oregon’s highways.

Lawmakers are desperate to raise new
money for the Oregon Department of Transportation. But first, they are required
to evaluate whether the current funding system is equitable — that is, if
passenger vehicles and 18-wheelers pay their fair share. When they do, both
groups are said to pay into the system at a ratio of 1 to 1.

Truck drivers are paying more than their fair share for Oregon roads. Credit: Brian Burk

But the answer delivered to the Senate
Finance Committee last week was that the ratio of payments was out of whack and
getting worse.

State economist Carl Riccadonna and
Matthew Kitchen of the consulting firm ECOnorthwest delivered the news. Their
explanation of the Highway Cost Allocation Study prompted the committee’s
chair, Rep. Mark Meek (D-Gladstone), to call the state’s efforts to balance
responsibilities between light and heavy vehicles a “shell game.”

Oregon’s method of allocating costs turns
on the principle that road users should pay based on use. If the payments are
out of balance, the Oregon Constitution requires lawmakers to fix them. “The
Legislative Assembly shall provide for a biennial review and, if necessary,
adjustment of revenue sources to ensure fairness and proportionality,” the
constitution says.

But for the past eight years, trucks have
paid more than their fair share.

State Sen. Mike McLane (R-Powell Butte),
a member of the Finance Committee, says it’s past time lawmakers did their duty
to balance who pays and who benefits. “It’s a very serious issue,” McLane says.
“I’m a little shocked we are not addressing it because we have a constitutional
duty to do so.” (Senate President Rob Wagner, D-Lake Oswego, hopes to correct
the imbalance as part of the transportation package.)

Here’s what it would take to get the
system back in balance:

9
CENTS PER GALLON

That’s the amount the gas tax would need
to be raised for light vehicles (those weighing under 10,000 pounds, which
include passenger vehicles and light trucks). The registration fee for such
vehicles would also have to be raised by 7%. Lawmakers are choking on these
increases because they would be raising taxes on most Oregonians without
providing any new services.

41%

That’s how much lawmakers would have to
lower the weight-mile tax on the largest category of trucks paying the tax,
those in the 78,000-to-80,000-pound category (big rigs). Just as lawmakers
don’t want to anger constituents by raising gas taxes, they don’t want to pull
revenue away from an already cash-strapped ODOT by slashing the weight-mile
tax. “That would be very troublesome right now,” Meek says.

$500+
MILLION

That’s how much truckers have overpaid
for the use of state roads since 2019. Because lawmakers have failed to adjust
the revenue formula, the Oregon Trucking Association last year sued legislative
leaders and Gov. Tina Kotek for their failure to follow the constitutional
requirement to balance responsibility for road costs. Truckers say that failure
has cost Oregon trucking companies, many of them small, family-owned businesses
in rural parts of the state, more than $500 million.

—This story was produced by the Oregon Journalism Project, a nonprofit investigative newsroom for the state of Oregon. Learn more at oregonjournalismproject.org.